Make Your Bets! Regulators Approve Movie Box Office Futures Market

LOS ANGELES — U.S. regulators will allow the creation of a market
for trading futures contracts based on the predicted box-office
revenue of Hollywood movies.

Major Hollywood studios had opposed such a market, calling it a
form of "legalized gambling."

But the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission said Friday
that it was approving the Trend Exchange. The commission is still
reviewing the kind of contracts that would be traded on the
exchange, as well as a proposal to create a second market called
Cantor Exchange.